There are sometimes those discoveries that are heralded as the big moment for a generation of Scientists that just sort of fizzle out. It is in the scientist’s nature to be overzealous in their reporting of a new discovery, after all, in many experiments anything but failure is an amazing outcome. In just such an instance of the-best moment-of-our-lives-turned-ordinary the research group that descended on the Higgs Boson particle discovery-like event (it is still not classified as a discovery since researches have yet to define its exact nature) last year have all but ruled out the possibility that this would be the door to unlock a new view of our universe. In fact, from what I can tell, the whole thing is a real dud.

And now for something else

I like art, all kinds of art. I like big populous spectacles and quiet personal performances. I like realism, impressionism, expressionism, DaDa, modernism, post-modernism, futurism and on and on and on. There’s room for all of it. But out of all of it I tend to have a fondness for endurance art, usually in the form of performance. This week I saw a video featuring one of the luminaries in this particular subdivision of performance art, Marina Abramovic. Abromovic is an intense woman. She subjects herself to long and often painful experiences that treat her body as both object and instrument. In the 1970′s she began a love affair with artist Ulay. The two collaborated many times until their final piece in 1988 in which, starting at opposite ends of The Great Wall of China, they walked towards one another – meeting in the middle and hugging before leaving and not seeing each other again…Until Abramovic’s 2010 MoMa retrospective.

In patented Abramovic style, the artist put herself in the middle of her work, creating an interactive event where attendees could sit and make 1 minute of eye content with her. In that line of attendees was Ulay, this is the first time they had seen each other in 24 years (the music is terrible, I didn’t pick the music, don’t mention the music)